Dear Reader,
Welcome to all the new connections and readers I met this week! It's been a whirlwind of gatherings starting Tuesday morning when I spoke at the NVAR Annual Convention for local realtors in the Northern Virginia area, then joined RedThreadX in DC to imagine the future of military operations as part of the AUSA Annual Army Show. Later that evening and yesterday, I was in Loudoun County with a community of tech founders, operators and investors participating in a $1 million dollar pitch competition for Distilled Intelligence 3.0. Tonight I'll be speaking to a group of business students at American University, followed by the Desai Foundation's Diwali on the Hudson celebration in downtown New York.
October is busy, but I'm lucky to have so many moments for human connection. I'll be sharing videos from all these events in the coming weeks, but for now - let's get going with this week's non-obvious stories. Enjoy and stay curious!
Rohit
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This Week's New Videos ...
This Homework Motivation Pen Could Transform How We Learn
Every time I work out, my health app gives me a "Strive Score" that tells me how hard I worked and how much I pushed myself. I don't really understand how it's calculated but when I get a higher score, I feel better about myself. That meaningless score creates motivation. What if the same principle could be used to motivate any of us to learn better or more consistently? A Japanese company called Kokuyo previously launched a "homework motivation pen" for kids and recently just launched a new version specifically for adults.
Their initial research shows a stunning 80% success rate in helping to establish positive study routines. More interesting is the ecosystem inspired by gaming that they are building around the pen:
"For adults, Kokuyo added deeper gamification: a customizable avatar that grows a "motivation tree" as users accumulate study time and unlock accessories. The avatar advances through board-game-style stages, occasionally encountering other users and collecting their Nakama Cards — profiles revealing why they study and what keeps them going — fostering community without direct interaction."
Experts suggest that the complexity of handwriting Japanese characters may be a factor in the success of this tool, but it would be interesting to see if a similar idea might perform well in other countries around the world too. If they did, maybe I could also get a new quantified strive score based on how hard I worked to put this email together for you each week!
Why Every School Should Teach Vergangenheitsbewältigung
The Flakturm IV bunker building was too sturdy to destroy. The WWII era air raid shelter used thick concrete walls that made it impenetrable during the war, and indestructible after it. For the past ten years, local architects in Hamburg have been working to build a staircase around it and make the symbol of war into something different. Last year, the construction was completed and today it's a public green space with a roof garden and its usage has been transformed.
The effort is perfectly explained by a mindset in Germany known by the term Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which describes the act of a group of people reflecting and coming to terms with their collective past:
"Today’s Germany has effectively and thoughtfully engaged in the education about and remembrance of the Holocaust. In terms of education, museums use geographic elements and an abundance of evidence to show beyond doubt the extent to which the events that took place are relevant. On the other hand, remembrance and memorialization seem to use more symbolic and subliminal tactics to convey the horror of Nazism through emotion rather than brute facts."
Reading about this reimagined bunker and this beautiful idea that warrants an entire word in the German language, I found myself wishing there were more people encouraging (or perhaps inspiring) this sort of introspection in other cultures. Imagine if we had all spent some time in history classes reflecting on painful episodes from the past and discussing how we might ensure we never need to relive them. Learning about the past shouldn't be about memorizing dates. It should help us focus on lessons we should take away to create a better future.
The Next Generation of Gig Work Will Be Microtasking
This week Uber announced that they will have a new offering where gig works can choose to take on "microtasks" such as training AI models and offering feedback on new iterations launched. It's a logical extension for an app that has actively tried to extend beyond gig drivers to become the champion of "flexible work" in all its forms.
Along with several innovations designed to make the Uber driver/courier/task-doer experience better, such as a way to appeal a negative review and share their own side of the story, plus heat maps to show high congestion areas for them to better organize their routes - this is an evolved side of Uber that seems to be taking seriously some of the past complaints about unfairness towards their gig workers.
The interesting part here is how this new initiative might signal a new category of microtasking work that can become a profitable side hustle for anyone in any moment. Imagine being paid small amounts based on taking your time to offer some sort of feedback on emerging technology. It's a well known fact that the only way AI gets better, more human and less prone to turn on us is if actual humans take the time to train it. In that sense, the more diverse range of people who can get involved with this, the better. If those asking for the advice actually do heed it, of course.
